TINDERBOX

Alex shouted down from the bathroom to say that she was typing numbers on her calculator and the wrong number came out. By the time I had a chance to talk to her about it, she had it all figured out: “I didn’t realize that when it has a little line in front of it, it’s a negative number.” I asked how she’d figured it out. “I put in one take away two equals.”

“As long as we’re talking about negative numbers…” I was curious about how much she’d actually taken away from the five-minute lesson we did last weekend. So I asked her about 2-4 and 3-6, and she answered them both quickly. 3-4 got me “Mooooom, I want to watch a video!” so I stopped pushing my luck. But yeah, looks like the concept stuck.

Sometimes incidents like this make me feel pressured – like I really ought to be sitting down with her on a regular basis and encouraging her to make steady progress through math (and probably other things), since she obviously has the capability. It’s hard to let go of the mindset that can means should.

[This post is intended in part as a test of the LJ RSS feed, which seems to be up and running for new posts but not picking up dropped ones from before. If you read this blog through LiveJournal, you've probably missed posts here and here.]